68 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of how and why the Forests and the Service came into existence, the 

 story based upon the author's seven years' experience in that Service. 



We may say at the outset that the work is conscientiously done, and, 

 while it is announced as a "short popular account," it is worth reading 

 by every professional student of the technical art, as it will open his 

 mind better than any other reading to the great, almost bewildering, 

 variety of specialization in forestry work as pursued by a great forest 

 administration, and would serve well as collateral reading in a course 

 on forest administration. 



The book can also be specially recommended to intelligent people 

 with interest in open-air recreation. Especially in the West our moun- 

 taineering societies contain large numbers of these. It is also of special 

 general and practical interest to inhabitants of National Forest regions, 

 for the land of the National Forests is the land of the cow-puncher, 

 the sheep-herder, and the lumberjack — a land of crude customs and 

 manners, but, withal, of generous hospitality. It is the country of the 

 elk and the mule-tail deer, the mountain lion and the rattlesnake. Its 

 grandeur makes you love it; its vastness makes you fear it; yet there 

 is an irresistible charm, a magic lure, an indescribable something that 

 stamps an indelible impression upon the mind and that makes you want 

 to go back there after you have sworn an oath never to return. Thus 

 forcefully does the author show the National Forest region to contain 

 much of the atmosphere whence springs the vitality and idealism of 

 America. Yet the underlying thought is that the material resources 

 must be preserved if the region is to continue to maintain this virile 

 population, which may be expected in future to contribute much of its 

 vitality to the country as a whole. 



The contents are divided into four chapters, besides a lengthy intro- 

 duction (50 pages). The latter, designed mainly to be an argument 

 for the creation of the National Forests, is, perhaps, the weakest part, 

 being too condensed. The first chapter, which concerns itself with the 

 historical development, suffers from the same fault, some interesting 

 and instructive details being evidently unknown to the author. 



The fact that the first reservations were created in response to peti- 

 tions made by citizens of the locality, engineered by the American 

 Forestry Association, would have been worth recording. 



The facts that President Cleveland came near being indicted for his 

 wholesale creation of twenty million acres of reservations, and that the 

 whole reservations policy was on the point of being overthrown, are 

 important enough to be mentioned in even a short account. 



